Quentin Stafford-Fraser's blog

Daily Archives:June 17th, 2005

Podcasts are becoming more and more important to me. Every day, while shaving or dressing, I get to listen to about 20 mins of interesting, educational stuff, usually talks from conferences that I didn’t get to attend. Now I can ‘attend’ them without any cost in money or time! If I had a daily commute to work, it would be even more valuable.

I’ve always been a big fan of radio. The quality of radio & TV broadcasting here is one of the few things about Britain that still makes me proud of my country. The more I travel, the more I realise that our publicly-funded BBC really is the best in the world. And I’m ever more aware that, despite this, its days in its current form are numbered.

But if I, as an enthusiastic supporter of radio in Britain, find myself spending more time listening to podcasts than the radio, no wonder it’s taking off at such a rate in the rest of the world! I don’t expect, for example, when I turn on the radio, to hear any commercials, but for most of the world the simple matter of podcasts being largely advertisement-free is probably enough of an incentive in itself.